Does Flexible Working Promote and Reduce Discrimination for All Staff - Coursework Example

Q8: Evaluate the extent to which flexible working promote and reduce discrimination for all staff in the workplace? Introduction In the recent past, multinational organisations have applied varied measures to manage global workforce diversity. One of the strategic measures through which organizations have sought to manage diversity and promote equality while reducing workforce discrimination is through flexible policies (Kersley et al, 2013). This essay offers a critical analysis of the role of flexible policies application as a means of addressing workforce diversity discrimination. On one hand, it explores how flexible working house use reduce discrimination through supporting the disabled employees, creating gender balance, and cultural sensitivity respectively. On the other hand, it evaluates how the use of flexible working hours creating discrimination through the use of different performance levels and unequal access to ret times respectively. How Flexible Working Promote Employee Discrimination This section explores the various avenues through which the use of flexible working policies increases employee discrimination. The key evaluated aspects are use of different performance measures and unequal access to opportunities by the employees. Background One of the strategic measures under flexible working systems is the use of working from home alternatives. This system includes allowing the employees to work form their respective homes. In this case, the employees can either work from home on a permanent basis or temporarily basis. Through this approach, the system ensures that some of the employees operate from home at their own convenience. However, Scott and Byrd (2012) argued that the process faces the challenge of employee rivalry. In this case, the authors argued that through the use of the work from home systems, there emerges employee rivalry. In this regard, a majority of the organisations offer their employee opportunities to work from home based on performance as a reward, and based on their needs. This results to rivalry. On one hand, some of the employees feel that through selecting some of the employees to work from home while the others work from the office is a discriminatory approach. In this case, the process defies the principles of equal treatment of employees. Employee Performance Evaluation Differences In order to evaluate employee performance levels, one of the critical conditions is that all the employees, evaluated under the same category, should be operating and working under the same working conditions. The operations under the same working conditions ensure that the employees have the same share of resources and conditions to measure their performance. In this case, Dancaster (2014) noted that if employees operated under different conditions, the availability of resources and other hygienic conditions are bound to be different. This can be illustrated through a review of the Herzberg two factor theories. The theory held that existing organisational working conditions, resources availability and other aspects are a part of the hygienic factors impacting on employee performance. First, while as some organisational departments may allow their employees to work under flexible working hours, others do not. As such, this means that it creates unfairness to employees working in the same organisation. Moreover, once some of the employee operates from home, while others operate and function from the office, a number of discrepancies emerge. Such discrepancies include the availability of resources. First, the employees working from the office are bound to have access to the vast organsiational resources at their disposal. On the other hand, the employee working from their homes have a limited availability if the resources (Kelly et al, 2014). Although some of the organisations ensure the transmission and availability of the resources online, at times, technology failures could lead to breakdowns. Therefore, based on this first review, if is evident that working from home employees are discriminated. This is because they lack and are denied an equal access to organisational facilities and resources that the work from office employees have. For instance, Christensen and Schneider (2015) noted that a major challenge faced by the work from home employees was the challenge of distractions, as many lacked an exclusive office working space free from families and friends. This is in contrast to the work from office employees who have exclusive offices, often free from distractions and outside interference. Hence, based on this understanding, it is evident that the organisations fail to treat all their employees equally, in terms of resources availability, resulting to a case of work from home employees’ discrimination. Unequal Access to Family and Friends For every aspect, there are two sides of the coin. In this case, the second end of the coin in this regard is that through setting up work from home systems for some of the employees, organisations discriminate against those remaining as office based workers. In this case, the work from home employees enjoys work life balance. This implies that the employees attain and acquire enough time to work as well as interact with their families and social encounters (Jones, Burke & Westman, 2013). On the contrary, the works from office employees are restricted on their interactions with outsiders, with whom they are expected not to interact with during office hours. This means that while as a section of the employees is restricted on their family and friends’ interactions, the work from home employees have unrestricted access to their families (Rodriguez-Munoz, Sanz-Vergel, Demerouti & Bakker, 2014) The adoption of this process leads to an unequal treatment of the employees, where different standards and parameters are used to manage the employees. The principles of employee discrimination are based on any aspects through which employees in an organisation are subjected to unequal treatment, where some employees are favoured over others (Sonnentag, 2012). Hence, based on the above analysis, it is apparent that the use of flexible working policies lead to unequal employees treatment among an organisational workforce, hence favouring one group over the other. This is an indication of organisational workforce discrimination How Flexible Working Reduce Employee Discrimination This section reviews the different ways in which the use of flexible working policies enhances reduced employee discrimination among a diverse workforce. This section reviews the elements of flexible working systems for disabled employees and gender and family balance gender and family balance respectively. Disabled Workers One of the key justifications for the use of flexible working systems is to support organisational physically disabled employees. One of the regulations on employment is the non-discrimination of physically disabled employees. As such, regulations such as the UK equality Act 2010 argue that organisations should never discriminate or fail to recruit employees on the basis of their physical disabilities (Morris, Morris & Sigafoos, 2015). This is as long as the physical disabilities do not directly impact on the employees functioning and directs execution of their responsibilities. However, the need to travel to work on a daily basis and often move up and down office floors in the execution of their duties, the disabled employees feel challenged. As a result, although such employees could be employed by a venture, the operations systems are discriminatory and often encourage the employees to resign from such positions. This is because such office spaces, the need for regular movements and travel needs complicate there operations, as they cannot execute them with a seamless ease as the other non-physically disabled employees. This as Veale (2012) noted, has emerged as a new form of employee discrimination, where organisations, although abiding by laws discriminate such employees through their daily operational systems in the workplace (Fevre, Robinson, Lewis & Jones, 2013). However, the use of the flexible work systems such as working from home serves as an ideal equality tool. On one hand, as indicated above, the key challenges to the physically disabled employees are the travelling challenges to work and across organsiational floors. As such, the use of working from home enables organisations overcomes these barriers on behalf of their disabled employees. First, it eliminates the need for the employees to struggle with travel and traffic challenges on a daily basis to the work place. Instead the employees can easily operate from their homes (Hulsheger, Alberts, Feinholdt & Lang, 2013). The use of this strategic measure gives the employees an ease of operation opportunity similar to all the other organsiational employees. Moreover, as a means of reducing the need to move from one organsiational office floor to the next, the disabled employees working from home can attend to the meetings through online technology enabled tools. Thus, the above analysis illustrates that through the adoption of a flexible working system, such as working from home; organisations support and reduce the discrimination meted on their physically disabled employees. As a means of illustrating the efficiency of this system, Bloom, Liang, Roberts and Ying (2013) argued that through a work for home practice, organisations increased their disabled employees’ productivity, through the provision of an equal working platform to the other organsiational employees in the market. Gender and Family balance The second area in which organisations use of flexible working policies is through supporting the family tied and single mother employees. In this case, Hamel and Prahalad (2013) noted that in the global market, the diversity of the employees has increased. In this case, the authors noted that besides the traditional gender based diversity, the new form of workforce diversity include employees from both genders with varied roles. In this regard, women, who are often charged with family responsibilities are discriminated and denied work opportunities. In this case, Landsbergis, Grzywacz and LaMontagne (2014) noted that a fair and just treatment of such employees is the alignment of their needs to the organsiational responsibilities. As such, an effective organsiational diversity system is one that ensures that the special employee needs are addressed in an organisation. Through the use of the normal working systems, especially on the working and reporting hours, some of the employee categories are discriminated. In this case, the employees with children to take to school and dependent and sick family members are denied the opportunities to manage such responsibilities. Consequently, Gatrell, Burnett, Cooper and Sparrow (2013) noted that through such challenges, the turnover ratio for such employees is bound to be high in organisations. This has the indirect discrimination impact in that the employees they feel neglected and often end up leaving organsiational workforces as the family and social responsibilities overwhelm them. However, the adoption of a flexible working system decease this discrimination challenge. This is especially in the case of a flexible working system. In this case, the flexible working system adjusts the employee working hours. On one hand, some of the organisations adjust the employee reporting and departure hours. As such, the employees can report relatively late through allowing them to report late by addressing their family needs and then latter reporting to their work duties. Through the adoption of this approach, the organisations ensure that the employee needs and the organsiational interest are aligned and coordinated. On the other hand, some of the organisations use the term-time working only approach (Brescoll, Glass & Sedlovskaya, 2013). Under this system, the employees work when their children are in school and have their unpaid leaves over the holidays to make sure they take care of their children. This ensures that the children are safe and take care off during the holidays as a part of their proper parenting system. This system ensures that while as the employees work for longer hours an periods over the school period, they acquire some free time over the school holidays to care for their children. On the other hand, for the employees without family and children responsibilities, their working hours both during school terms and over the holidays remain the same, creating consistency. The adoption of this system supports the idea of ensuring that all the employee needs are addressed. In this case, it ensures equality for all the employees. This is especially through creating a suitable working environment and conditions for all the employs, thus promoting productivity and the ultimate satisfaction of all the employees in an organsiational set up. Cultural Sensitivity The final rational and equality aspects of a work life balance and flexible working system is the need to address the various employee cultures. Different national markets globally have diverse cultural orientations. This can be illustrated through the Hofstede cultural dimensions model. The model, derived from an empirical study conducted on IBM Company employees across the globe established five key cultural dimensional areas were cultures vary (Mazanec, Crotts, Gursoy & Lu, 2015). The dimensions included collectiveness/individuality, power distance, risk uncertainty voidance, long term/short term orientation, and masculinity/femininity aspects respectively (Taras, Steel & Kirkman, 2012). The fact that the global markets diverse workforce hail from different cultures, implies that their need vary. For instance, in China the employees focus on the collective employment aspects where their concern for the families and social relationships remain absolute. This is in contrast to the western markets such as the UK, where the individualism index is relatively high and employee operations are focused on individual career and personal growth respectively. Therefore, in order to ensure equitable employee treatment and eliminate discrimination, a consideration of the diverse characteristics should be considered. It is at this juncture that a flexible working system gains its rationale. In this case, a flexible working system, such as a work from home in China is a critical approach to facilitating the development of employee social ties. As such, this increases the overall employee motivation by supporting their family ties respectively. On the other hand, in the European market, the organisations use flexible working hours. This ensures that the employees acquire opportunities to support and advance their careers (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). This is a part of ensuring that their interests and culture diversity elements are incorporated in the organisational needs. Conclusion In summary, the essay offers a critical analysis of the flexible working policies adoption. Fundamentally, the essay seeks to explore if indeed flexible working policies promote or reduce employee discrimination in an international workforce. First, the study analysis established that the approach adoption increase employee discrimination. This is due to unequal access to organsiational resources as well as unequal access to family and social contacts for the work at home and the work at office employees. However, the review evidenced that the use of flexible work policies reduce employee discrimination. In this case, it argued that through the policy, the system has enhanced the rights and equal participation of the physically disabled employees, single mothers and employees with family ties as well as to ensure the catering of the employees from diverse cultural backgrounds. As such, the review illustrates that although there is unequal distribution of resources and accessibility to family inequality through the system, it is worth the process. Tweets Role of Employee Union in creating employee equality and fighting for their rights, leads the satisfactory for the workers. #Welfare_is_need_it. Employee bullying is a diversity issue and discriminates some employees, will you implement a policy to protect me. #Protect_Me_From_Bullying_Employers. Age Discrimination in Employment remains a main challenge, while some applicants gave up from applying to be employed. #I_Need_a_Job. References Scott, C. L., & Byrd, M. Y. 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